I co-teach a course for which I cover world literature, and my partner teaches world religions. The idea is for the course to meld the two subjects into one class. Ideally, the two teachers will become comfortable teaching both subjects together.
For our unit on Islam, we have often been challenged by the preconceived, mostly negative ideas that the students in my Catholic school have about Islam and Muslims (mostly propagated by the media). When I was accepted to participate in the ICJS Teachers Fellowship, I was very excited to be in the company of like-minded educators in a space where we could freely and compassionately discuss this type of challenge.
For my presentation for the cohort, I chose the topic, “Radical Love in Sufism and Rumi.” I actually knew very little about Sufism, but I thought that researching it would be extremely helpful, not only for my own knowledge, but also for offering students a view of Islam that was completely opposite from what they were seeing in the media.
My research led to me developing an intense interest in Sufism, and I intend to dig much more deeply into learning about the practice for next year. This mystical aspect of Islam is very beautiful, and I was really happy to be teaching my students about it.
One of the most poignant parts of preparing for this lesson was my meeting with Zeyneb Sayilgan, ICJS’ Muslim scholar, to discuss my plans. She was amazingly helpful, and I was really pleased to see that we were basically on the same page about how to approach teaching students about Islam.
My students had already learned about the basic tenets of Islam, and so they already had elementary knowledge about this religious practice. Zeyneb had some great ideas for me about how to conduct the lesson, particularly regarding the way in which we explored the whirling dervishes and the physical and spiritual ways in which they connected with Allah.
When I am learning about a new subject, I am always open to acknowledging my blind spots. I actually enjoy it when I see them since we can’t change something that we don’t realize exists. In my discussion with Zeyneb, we spoke about the way in which Rumi has been commercialized in contemporary society. It is remarkable that a 13th century poet and theologian is so popular today.
In my discussion with Zeyneb and Christine, I realized how much Rumi and his legacy have been separated from Islam in contemporary culture. I was aware to a degree, but when we started really talking about it, I realized that the extraction of Islam from Rumi’s work was extremely problematic, and I wanted to address that with students.
After I conducted my lesson on Sufism,Rumi, and led an exercise where students analyzed Rumi’s poetry, we pulled up various memes (at Zeyneb’s suggestion) and analyzed those. We looked at the myriad of tattoo designs based on Rumi quotes, Rumi cartoons, Rumi home décor, and other ways in which Rumi has been popularized and commercialized.
We had a great discussion about this, and the students had fantastic insights. They understood that Islam and Rumi’s passion for Islam were at the center of his gorgeous poetry. The students were interested in learning about the modern commercialization of Rumi’s work. They also acknowledged just how one-sided the majority of information about Islam is in the United States.
My experience with ICJS has been so inspirational, and I am very grateful for it. The staff and scholars were so supportive and interesting. My cohort was great, and I learned so much from them. I am looking forward to implementing more interesting, religiously intersectional instruction in the future.
Diana Degnan-LaFon teaches humanities at Notre Dame Prep and was a fellow in the 2021-2022 ICJS Teachers Fellowship. Learn more about the ICJS teacher programs for teachers here.
Opinions expressed in blog posts by the ICJS Teacher Fellows are solely the author’s. ICJS welcomes a diversity of opinions and perspectives.